We received a recent distress call from the East Coast from the family of a former member of an elite special operations force who recently separated from the military.  He served three tours of duty in Afghanistan.  His wife and mother called the National Veterans Foundation Lifeline for Vets™.  They heard about our work helping Veterans in crisis and were very concerned about his mental state.   I met with him fresh out of his separation from the military.  You could almost smell the sand and desert on him.  His wife described him as acting like a deer in the headlights since coming home.   He separated from the military because he had done his service and felt like returning to his family was the right thing to do after years of being away.  But he found himself resenting the decision.  

In Afghanistan, he had bonded deeply with his unit in combat.   They were a cohesive group.  They fought together, going through situations most people never see, and probably couldn’t imagine.   He returned home and felt like an alien in this loosey-goosey civilian world where everyone’s main concern seems to be which team is going to win a basketball game.  After living in combat for so long, he feels like he can’t relate to this world, that he has no connection to it.  

The soldier had been ok after his first tour, distant after his second, and a completely different person after his third.  From his wife and mother’s perspective, he was as cold as stone.  They didn’t recognize him.   It was like having a statue of the husband and son they knew before.  

Many people dealing with the men and women returning from combat talk a lot about trauma, and frame soldiers’ war experiences in the same way you would talk about a victim of violent crime, natural disaster or domestic abuse.   It’s a reasonable and accurate way to look at their experience in many, if not most, cases. 

There are many service members who signed up to serve their country, but who didn’t, in their minds, sign up for this, particularly those National Guardsmen and Reservists who have been sent to multiple combat tours.    They didn’t sign up for two wars that could soon be the longest in American history. They didn’t sign up to be sent back again and again, at rates and for durations that far exceed those of other modern conflicts.  Many of them didn’t sign up to lose their marriages, their sense of self, their civilian jobs, and their homes.   They didn’t sign up to come back physically and emotionally wounded to twist in the wind, without the support they need.  And many didn’t sign up for combat roles, but have been thrust into them anyway due to the types of insurgent warfare these two wars involve. 

There are many other service members, like those in elite combat units, who signed up fully aware and expecting these things to happen.   There are soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen who have enthusiastically and aggressively engaged in this war and have become willingly immersed in it.   But for these gung-ho combat specialists, coming home is just as difficult and painful as it is for those who feel traumatized by war. 

One way to frame the problems troops have after spending a lot of time in the combat zone is as a huge culture shock and adjustment process.   It’s possible to do one tour of combat duty and still be able to relate to the “real” world when you come home.  It’s tougher after two tours.  For many, it’s damn near impossible after three.

People have to understand that these men and women are becoming completely acclimated not just to another country and its culture; they are becoming acclimated to a different set of social and moral norms and behaviors.   They are living every day in an environment where it is perfectly normal and expected for people to try to kill them, and it is normal and expected for these troops to kill others, without hesitation.   And their fellow team members live with them in this alternate universe, and go through it with them, every day, every hour, every minute.   These blood brothers and sisters bond on a level that goes beyond any marriage, beyond any other relationship they have or will have in their lives.  And in this environment for many months and several tours, their brains and bodies change and adapt to help them survive and to thrive.

We saw this in Vietnam and we’re seeing it again now. 

When they come back home, these troops have no common frame of reference with civilians, even people who they love and with who they have a long history.   Cognitively and emotionally they are still at war.  They can’t turn off the hyper-vigilance, the emotional distance they have developed to cope in the war zone, the military discipline and prioritization that has kept them and their buddies alive.   They have been transported physically to a different environment, a safe one, surrounded in most cases by people who love them; but mentally, they are still at war. 

They are surrounded by people who love them but not by people who understand them.  Only the men and women they have served with understand who they now are and what they’ve been through.  

One psychological element that many people don’t recognize or want to talk about is that many of these guys and gals miss combat.   It’s exciting and adrenaline filled.  The stakes are higher: life or death.   It feels more real than a world of pop culture, commuting, bill paying, office work and PTA meetings.   Those things don’t have the visceral, emotional weight of the world they have been living in.  War has become home to them.  

It is important that in helping these men and women adjust to life after combat we try and understand the complex set of cognitive, psychological and emotional issues they are dealing with.   Placing expectations on them, as family members, friends and co-workers that they think, behave and feel the way they did before they went to war just compounds the problem.  It pressures them.  It adds to their already anxiety-ridden, confusing and difficult daily navigation of civilian life.  Those expectations and lack of understanding can add fuel to their anger, depression and feelings of hopelessness. 

These men and women have sacrificed for our country.  It is the least we can do to try and understand their adjustment, to give them the room they need, and give them the help they ask for, when they ask for it.    

The Special Forces Veteran we are working with from back east is in a slightly better place.   We were able to connect him with a buddy with whom he served his first two tours, who has been home longer and is farther down the reintegration road.  Peer to peer support is, and has always been, one of the better therapeutic tools for returning combat Veterans, if it’s possible.  I can talk to him until I’m blue in the face, and he may appreciate my efforts and have some respect for my own combat and counseling experience, but there’s always the part of him that can say I don’t really understand, because I haven’t been where he’s been.   His buddy has, and he’s coming out for a month to stay with the Vet.  The former soldier is numb right now, but he has someone to talk to who gets it, someone who has spilt the same blood on the same sand.  That’s a good start.

In the meantime, as we work to get the Vet stabilized,  I am working with the family, which is just as critical as counseling the Veteran, to help them better understand and provide them with their own tools to cope and communicate.